December 31, 2011

1. Write a poem about the new year. There are only 2 words that rhyme with 12: delve and shelve. You could expand the possibilities for rhyming with "12" by adding an additional word to the end of the line, such as "is." For example: "2012 is/a year without Elvis." Improve on that concept.

2. 12 is the largest number with a single-syllable name, so think of all the time we'll be saving saying "2012" instead of "2011." (That said, there were more rhymes for 11, including a few that are much more useful in poetry than "shelve." I'm thinking of "heaven," "seven," and "leaven.")

3. 12 feels nicely stable and satisfying, because of the familiar concept of a dozen and the number of inches in a foot. I guess that's why the 12 Steps program has 12 steps. And why there are 12 persons on a jury. You have 12 pairs of ribs too, you know. 12 months in a year. 12 hours on the clock.

4. Here's the etymology of "twelve" (which highlights the oddness of its being "twelve" and not "twelf"):

So it's basically "2 left" (and 11 was "1 left"). It's the same concept as the "-teen" numbers, relating the number to 10, but 12 and 11 use subtraction — what is left after 10 is removed — and the "-teen" numbers use addition, with "-teen" meaning "ten more than." I wonder why. Does it have something to do with the development of a child? If the child is 11 or 12, you think of taking him back to a younger age, but at 13, you picture him standing on a foundation of childhood and building from there? If that is so, then maybe 2012 is the last year when we feel we've just entered the new century/millennium, and next year, we'll feel we are truly in it.

5. 2012 is the last year when we won't have a name — a name that we actually use — for the decade. Next year, we'll be in the "teens." Don't tell me there really was a name for the first decade of the century. You can concoct something — I'd say "the 0s," pronounced "ohs" — but we didn't call it that casually and naturally, the way we said "the 80s" and "the 90s." The first 12 years of the century have been a weird respite from focusing on the decade-ness of the decade. And that has had some subtle effect on us. 2012 is that last year to experience that effect. And then next year, 2011 and 2012 will be swept into the decade that will thenceforward be called "the teens."

7. We'll ring in the new year at 12. At 12 it will be 12. Unless you're very young — and also very optimistic — you can't think that there will be any other day in your life when at 12 it will be 12. Unless you're extremely old, you've never before had the chance to realize: At 12 it will be 12. How stunningly unique today is!

12 feels nicely stable and satisfying, because of the familiar concept of a dozen and the number of inches in a foot. I guess that's why the 12 Steps program has 12 steps. And why there are 12 persons on a jury. You have 12 pairs of ribs too, you know. 12 months in a year. 12 hours on the clock.

And the 12 Apostles.

Al of the above are why God didn't want man to use the metric system, which is based on 10, and was invented by dullards who couldn't divide/multiple by 12. ;-)

The 12 Disciples included Judas, so that was instability, not stability...They were 13 with Jesus and everybody knows that is why american building used to lack 13 th floor.After Judas hanging another one was elected.

The first 12 years of the century have been a weird respite from focusing on the decade-ness of the decade... And then next year, 2011 and 2012 will be swept into the decade that will thenceforward be called "the teens."

Echos of

This holiday has felt a bit like one last long, deep breath before we plunge into 2012.

Twelve is a word that means less ten leaves two,Althouse finds it comforting, her reasons more than few.Also called a dozen, a grouping we hold dear,From inches on a ruler, to months in a full year.Jury members, eggs in cartons, donuts in a bag,It’s also the times a year a woman’s on “the rag!” I think that’s enough for now, more examples we shant delve,Happy New Year Althousians in two thousand twelve!

Twelve Angry men was good cinema and a great cast. I've watched it several times over the decades. As I got older I came to see how Hollywood liberal the theme was, the poor minority being prosecuted. That only diminished the movie some in my eyes, it was still great writing and acting.

My favorite is not on your list. In High Noon, Gary Cooper faces down a gang of killers alone with no help from the recalcitrant townfolk he's sworn to protect. Others have mentioned political allegories but I leave that to the experts.

The word noon is interesting in its own right and stems from the 12th century.

12 Monkeys is my favorite "12" movie. Despite Terry Gilliam's expected stylistic eccentricities and excesses, the film becomes powerfully moving, especially in the key scene of the young boy at the airport witnessing the shooting death of the grown man who is his future self.

By the way, the year just ending is the 11th year of the 21st Century, not the 12th year, and it is the first year of the second decade of the 21st Century.

Curious George nails the probable reason 12 is so special: the number of times the moon cycles the earth. Many other special numbers have "organic" origins: Ten digits; 60 beats of the heart; 360 degrees nicely encircles 12 suborbitals.

There are ways to sabotage your own jury duty if you work in the legal world at any level. In my case, I made it clear that I assisted in IP law. The case involved real estate ("real property")--metes and bounds stuff-and both sides seemed to like me at voir dire.

Great use of camera angles...at the end of the movie the camera is positioned below speakers, so you can see the ceiling, creating an oppressive feeling.

And what a magnificent cast with tightly drawn characters. Plus, a riveting plot.

The sort of movie I would want to show to someone from another country to try to explain to them our nation's highest ideals. Makes me think of two other great movies that have closed room scenes--Fail Safe (Fonda and Hagman) and Downfall (the much parodied Hitler tantrum scene)

"There are ways to sabotage your own jury duty if you work in the legal world at any level. In my case, I made it clear that I assisted in IP law. The case involved real estate ("real property")--metes and bounds stuff-and both sides seemed to like me at voir dire."

My "problem" was that I take questions seriously, so my answers always involved questions about the questions, and as a result, I seemed too weird/unpredictable/legalistic/annoying/???. It's not that I was trying to be annoying, but that I was sworn to tell the truth and then asked vague questions that required clarification to be answered honestly. I found it annoying, but I'm sure they thought I was too annoying.

I've been on several juries and am shocked at the logic of the other jury members. In a drunk driving case in which two children were seriously injured at midnight on New Year's Eve, one elderly woman with blue hair said she always drinks and drives so there's no way she would convict someone for doing the same thing she does. It took an hour but I maanged to convince her to balance her sympathy with the driver to sympathy with the injured children and other likely injured or killed children if we didn't get the guy off the road. We convicted, but back then the penalty was just a lost licence for two years. He should have been imprisoned for at least ten years. He caused a ten car pile-up and claimed it was because of a sudden case of vertigo. Half the jury believed this. Right, on New Year's Eve, coming out of the Navy yard? Why did it happen then and there? Because he was DRUNK, that's why.

People who work a profession seldom if ever like movies about that profession, be it doctors, athletes, lawyers, etc. I worked in the mental health field and never really liked any movies of that genre. So, a law professor hating 12 Angry men is consistent w/ that tradition.

The acting was the classic male acting of gthe 1950's. It was nominated for best picture, best director[the great Sidney Lumet] and best screenplay.

Having served on a criminal jury I have more knowledge than Ms. Althouse about such. I apparently wasn't found to be too obnoxious since I was selected.

2012 is also the last year that will lend itself to a numerical transcription that will duplicate the month or a time of day. Late in the year it will be 12:12 a.m. (or p.m.) on 12/12/2012. I.E., there is no 13th month or 13th hour, unless one resorts to military time.

Before reading the comments I picked Twelve Monkeys, one of my favorite all-time films. Then David Avera nails it in the first comment-- Twelve O'Clock High is simply a great movie, one of the first to look back at WWII honestly. I feel connected to it in a way since my uncle was an Eighth Air Force B-24 copilot who was shot down and spent a year and a half in Luftstalag 3.

Let's shelve it, all the talk about '12 being the end,Let it not be forgot that in '12 new life will be begottin',So let's rather delve into the glory that '12 will bring,For new life's the glory that '12 will surely bring my friend.

Midweek I awake with a splitting hangover and don't remember the pills or drinks that passed my lips and laid me low or the hips of girls I caressed after singing karaoke (my judgment blindfolded) or the hours missed entirely--

the phone rings, a new voice reminds me that the past exists only as a memory, and sometimes it's a gift to erase the thing entirely.

I wonder that some are so lucky as to do the same to the future. For instance, this week Samoa will close its eyes to thursday and wake up to saturday reaching 2012 a little earlyhaving crossed the dateline and erased a day entirely.

Back in 1752 the british empire adopted the gregorian calendar and all those brits went to sleep on september the 2nd, and woke up on the 14th, and accordingly george washington, who was born on february 11th celebrated his next birthday on the 22nd --eleven days lost, erased entirely

Ann wrote:[M]aybe 2012 is the last year when we feel we've just entered the new century/millennium, and next year, we'll feel we are truly in it.

Yes, twelve is a significant number. Twelve months. Twelve hours of light. Twelve hours of darkness. Twelve tribes. Twelve tables. Twelve labors. Twelve apostles. Twelve days of Christmas. Twelve eggs. Our Western culture is full of cycles of twelve. Too bad it’s so unpoetical. Perhaps it all boils down to our defining nature as pattern-seeking animals. There are seasons and there are phases of the moon -- twelve cycles of the moon completed and a new cycle of seasons commences. Not directly related to the modern mind, but to the ancient mind profoundly significant. One cycle must cause the other, they thought, or at least signify the other in a mystical way. Thus twelve entered our collective consciousness and has wormed its way ever since.

Still twelve is a satisfying number, much more than ten for some reason. Ten eggs don’t go very far, but a dozen make an adequate breakfast for four, or a fine breakfast for three. Twelve months barely suffices for a year’s labor and expense, so ten months a year would be a disaster. Imagine what Christmas would be like if we had only ten months to save up for it. And twelve apostles – so twelve guys follow Jesus around (twelve signifying the Twelve Tribes of Israel, correct?) but then one ends up a traitor, leaving eleven. But the Church must restore the number to the portentous twelve, so they appoint a new apostle, a guy who never laid eyes on Jesus. Odd that.

My big frustration is a baker’s dozen. We’ve all heard of it, it’s a common phase. It’s a dozen plus a bonus of one. But who of us has seen a baker’s dozen? A bag of bakery cookies contains twelve exactly, never the pleasant surprise of thirteen. I want my baker’s dozen, damn it! if for no other reason than to make the term meaningful at least once.

As for 2012 and the mythology of twelve, I don’t believe it fits the pattern. If the last century is any guide 2012 will not be a watershed year, the great divide between the old millennium and the new. 1912 was an undistinguished year. Apart from the sinking of RMS Titannic, and the rise of Woodrow Wilson, what else of note happened? Edward VII had been gone two years, but no one spoke of a new “Georgian” era. 1912 was so indistinguishable from 1899 that the times could just as well been called Victorian.

It took a world war to give birth to the 20th century. When exactly the change happened is not clear. The war had been brewing since 1870 so it wasn’t simply the outbreak of violence. Perhaps they heard the change approaching when the tramp of German hobnails was replaced with the sound of shovels biting earth as the trenches appeared along the Marne. Perhaps there was a whiff of change in the air along with the mustard gas. The moment of birth is still obscure, yet no one could doubt that with the fall of three imperial eagles the end and the beginning were clearly marked.

We are still living in that age which dawned sometime after August, 1914. Everything of consequence to us now had its genesis in that transition. We’re in the 21st century now, but not of it. Not yet.

Ann wrote: There are only 2 words that rhyme with 12: delve and shelve.

Incorrect.

helve [hɛlv]noun(Engineering / Tools) the handle of a hand tool such as an axe or pickverb(Engineering / Tools) (tr) to fit a helve to (a tool)[Old English hielfe; related to Old Saxon hèlvi, Old High German halb, Lithuanian kìlpa stirrup; see halter]